White male perspectives exoticize Chinese women in a range from innocent attraction to bigotry.
While I was abroad in China, I had a white male friend who proudly asserted he had “yellow fever.” About half the male members of my program, all white, admitted that the prospect of finding a Chinese girlfriend was something they considered when applying to study in China. Why shouldn’t they be optimistic about their prospects when Chinese girls are handing out their numbers left and right? Most of the white males in my program were hyper-aware of how easy it was for them to impress a Chinese girl with their whiteness alone. My friend often remarked on how much more confident he was when talking to Chinese girls than when talking to Asian Americans, and he was once upset when an “actually good-looking” white guy was in our vicinity.
This sort of behavior holds connotations deeper than simply finding Chinese girls attractive. Many white males in China develop a strong sense of entitlement and interact with Chinese girls with the expectation that their egos will be thoroughly stroked. For instance, one of the other white males in my program once flirted with several girls in one night. With each girl, he pointed to the Chinese boy band performing on stage and asked, “Who do you think is better-looking, them or me?” One girl answered, “Them.” He later flew into a rage, claiming the girl “wasn’t supposed to say that.” In his mind, Chinese girls always prefer and praise white guys, and if they do not, there is clearly something wrong with them.